We would like to invite you to contribute to the third issue of the Journal of Early Modern Studies (JEMS) on Letter Writing in the Early Modern period. The issue, entitled Letter Writing in Early Modern Culture, 1500-1750 will be published online at the end of February 2014. Its aim is to bring together scholars, from a wide disciplinary spectrum, working on the linguistic, literary, historical and more broadly cultural features of correspondence, in order to assess and discuss the points of convergence and divergence between the writing practices in different countries and contexts.

Increasing scholarly attention has recently been paid to letter writing in different periods from various angles. Yet we feel that not enough attention has been paid, in the period 1500-1750, to such issues as correspondence as multifunctional interaction between real people, the construction of the epistolary/discursive identities of the addressees of letters, gender differences in conveying information or in attaining the persuasive goals of letters. We also invite you to focus on differences in letter typology, the role played by letters in self-conscious image building, social networking, knowledge distribution, as well as on methodological issues.

If, as we hope, the project interests you, please take note of the main deadlines:

- end of September 2012: adhere to project and send working title to Prof. Gabriella Del Lungo (gabriella.dellungoalice.it) and Prof. Donatella Pallotti (donatella.pallottiunifi.it).- end of January 2013: finalize paper for submission to referees. Articles must comply with the editorial norms and must not exceed 12000 words, including endnotes and bibliography. All articles are published in English. Please be so kind as to have your paper revised by a native speaker.

We do hope you will be able to contribute to JEMS 3 and look forward to hearing from you soon.

With all good wishes,

Gabriella Del Lungo and Donatella Pallotti

Prof. Gabriella Del Lungo has been conducting research on English letters from a diachronic perspective for several years and has recently co-edited a volume on Letter Writing in Late Modern Europe (Benjamins, 2012).

Prof. Donatella Pallotti has been working on several aspects of early modern literature and culture, and co-edits a new open access peer-reviewed international journal - Journal of Early Modern Studies: http://www.fupress.net/index.php/bsfm-jems/index